Despite nursing some injuries, a five-man squad from Oberlin’s bowling team finished second to Kent State in the OC Unconventional tournament for the third consecutive year. Another Oberlin squad finished third. The event was held at College Lanes in Hales Annex on Saturday, April 13.

The format consisted of a five-game round robin, followed by single-elimination matches between the top three teams. Each match during the finals consisted of two Baker-style games, in which each of five team members rolls two frames of a single game score.
The most exciting part of the tournament was the semi-final match between Oberlin squads. The team that rolled the higher score in the first game, 166 to 140, on the strength of strikes by first-years Andy Seidel and Sam Hoffman and sophomore Andrew Falk, began the second game with two splits and finished with 138. The other Oberlin finalists rallied in the second game with consecutive strikes in the fourth and fifth frames by juniors Chico Alarcon and Jacob Adams, and in the eighth and ninth frames by sophomore John Thompson and Alarcon to roll a 175 game and narrowly win the match, 315-304. Adams was bowling with a broken pinky finger on his bowling hand, while Alarcon was limping to the foul line on a sprained ankle.

Kent State’s men’s team, which had won all five of its matches in the preliminary round, topped Oberlin in the first game of the final match by a 161-142 score before putting the title out of reach with six strikes en route to a 186-140 victory in the final game.
Rob Malcolm of Kent State led all bowlers with a 245 single game and 209 average for five games. Senior Jake Lubarsky, making his debut with the Oberlin squad, led the home-team scoring with a 195 game and 170 average. Sophomore Michael Siniscalchi contributed a 192 game, while Hoffman averaged 169.

Top women’s scores were a 224 game by Kent’s Jenni Smathers and a 173 average posted by her teammate Staci Weiss. First-year K Strickler led Oberlin’s women with a 178 game and 146 average, while senior Kia Treier chipped in with a 175 game and 142 norm.

Twenty-one Oberlin students competed in the event, which is sponsored each spring by the Intercollegiate Bowling Team and College Lanes. The team’s next competition will be a match against Intercollegiate Bowling Team alumni during Commencement weekend.

Tom Reid coaches the bowling team.